I’m going to put aside my differences with the Le Web conference and organizer Loic Le Meur for a moment to address another issue at the event: the complete lack of Internet connectivity, both days.
A good conference has at least three separate connections. One is for the audience and has both wifi coverage and as many ethernet cables as can be managed logistically. A separate ethernet connection should be reserved for the stage to ensure that demos go smoothly. And a final connection should be reserved for the press room so that bloggers and journalists can file reports even if the main audience connection goes down (as an aside, the press room should also have a simulcast of the stage so that press can work from there and cover the event real time). A fourth connection should be dedicated to livestreaming the event (Ustream was doing that at Le Web).
Le Web, which paid €100,000 to Swisscom to ensure lightning fast Internet, had no Internet connectivity. Nothing for the audience, nothing for the stage, nothing in the press room. Ustream had 50% connectivity, and lost some great footage.
Day 1 was a complete writeoff and I left mid day to work from my hotel. On day two there was some connectivity reported by a few people, but I wasn’t able to get access to the Internet until after the event was over.
Le Meur apologized to attendees. Beyond that, there was really nothing he could do. He contracted with Swisscom to take care of Internet access, and Swisscom failed to provide that service. Once the event started, all he could really do was beg them to get it right. They never did.
We had the same problems at TechCrunch50 (day one Internet was a write off, although we had a stage connection). We’ve settled with our provider and agreed not to trash them publicly, so I won’t name the service. But we will never do business with them again.
I was planning on letting this go and not writing about it. But today Swisscom, instead of simply apologizing, denied the problem (translated version here):
Swisscom spokesman Sepp Huber media that the high demands of users and the organizer could not be met. Swisscom is currently analyzing the causes. Huber, however like to stress that contrary to the connectivity different reports about 80% of the two day event was ensured and on the second day of the conference almost worked smoothly.
This is, to put it bluntly, a lie. A complete and total fabrication. And there are 1,700 people who attended the event that can verify this (here’s one!). There was no connectivity during the event, I was not able to blog a word from the conference hall or the press room. There was not 80% coverage. Things most definitely did not “almost work smoothly.” Things didn’t work at all.
In addition to managing the media side of things with outright fictions like the one above, Swisscom will be negotiating with Le Web on the fee. Part of it was undoubtedly paid up front. Whatever Le Web still owes them will be negotiated down.
But forget the €100,000. Swisscom’s actions damaged Le Web considerably. Sponsors and presenters were also damaged because they couldn’t show their content on stage, and press couldn’t cover the news. I wouldn’t be surprised if some sponsors refused to pay their agreed fees.
In a perfect world Swisscom would be writing a check to Le Web for 10x the fee they tried to charge, just to make them whole. But I’m guessing the company included a standard limitation of liability clause in their contract with Le Web. That isn’t bulletproof. Grossly negligent behavior, which is exactly what happened, would likely nullify the limitation. But that would require hiring lawyers and going to court, which is a nightmare and won’t happen.
This is something we think about a lot at TechCrunch, because so many conferences have bad connectivity, and we need to make it perfect at TechCrunch50 next year. There’s a real business here if a large company can get it right and is willing to put a guarantee in place to conference organizers. They can charge almost anything – I’m sure Loic would have paid €200,000 if that’s what it took to get proper Internet for attendees. If they can build a reputation for reliability, and are willing to back up that reputation with a liquidated damages clause for failure in the range of, say, 5x the fee they charge, then I imagine every conference that could would hire them.
their competitors dont even need to spend any real money on campaign ads just used this example of their services sucking and its a wrap.
Wow. You know the news is getting light when someone actually takes the time to post this kind of useless tripe.
You couldn’t find me within 1000 miles of something called “LeWeb” even if I was offered free wine and french hookers. Calling something “LeWeb” is beyond marketing explanation. I feel like a fag just reading the words.
As far as I can tell, having no internet access was insignificant, since there was nothing newsworthy at this event to begin with.
Wow this immature bullshit needs to stop.
You acted like an ass and you need to apologize.
-signed a die hard fan
A post about useless internet connectivity at what people seem to regard as a useless conference. Thanks Mike for the 3rd post about Le Web today and wasting our time when we come here to read about technology, startups, etc
TechCrunch is about nothing these days it seems except petty cr^p that pseudo-celebrities seem to think is important.
LeWeb was a great conference, despite the wifi. This picture, of TED’s Chris Anderson, shows that the content was compelling: http://www.flic...zer/3099466882/
It’s too bad that the wifi never worked, so we weren’t able to really share the total experience with you.
You couldn’t find me within 1000 miles of something called “LeWeb” even if I was offered free wine and french hookers. Calling something “LeWeb” is beyond marketing explanation. I feel like a fag just reading the words.
The wifi was slightly better the second day, but it still sucked. I could rarely get on even the second day. The first day? Impossible. I’ll never use Swiss Telecom for a conference. They were the worst provider of Internet services at a conference I’ve ever experienced. It really was that bad. Do not ever use them.
wow robert, you’re are really everywhere these times … how are you achieving this?
neuropresence.
FriendFeed tells me where the interesting conversations are.
How about using 3G+ network instead? And wasn’t Orange one of the sponsors???
A 3G card must cost something like 20 bucks wholesale. 1700×20= $34,000
Add up the access fee and Loic would’ve been paying much less than 100,000 euros.
It was a lame choice to go with wifi.
wifi is over. especially a in a country like France that benefits from true 3G+: http://snurl.com/82c1g
just my 2 cents
It doesn’t work like that. If a 3G card can provide X mb/s of connectivity, then having 1700 3G cards in the room doesn’t = 1700 x X mb/s of connectivity.
There is a finite amount of data a cell can transfer on the frequency your carrier uses. And every card that connects to the same cell is simply pooling that finite resource. You’re also competing with every iPhone and Blackberry in the cell too.
That was my knee jerk reaction too, but Ben explains it very well.
Scoble, do you ever sleep? LOL..
PS: When are you organizing a conference in Europe and who will you use for internet?
I would partner with someone who does it right. The LIFT Conference always seemed to be good in Geneva, Switzerland. So if I were to do a conference in Europe (I don’t want to do that) I would partner with them cause they already have the relationships with good vendors.
Robert
You say the Lift conference always seemed to be good… Who do you think provided the internet @Lift conference? Swisscom… and they are also sponsors of the event. Failures happen. Swisscom did a bad (well… horrible) job at leweb, but a good one in many other conferences… Just like RainMan doesn’t fly with any airlines because they all had accidents, if we are to rule out all internet providers who ever failed an event, we’d stay without connection…
Scoble Web Conference 2009 in Skopje? (has a ring to it)
Organizing a “big bang” infrastructure is a major challenge for everyone. Most of the suppliers fail. Which means that it is was a known risk for all the people on stage or needing to make a presentation.
Knowing that, I do not understand why sponsors and people on stage had no “backup” plan (application/demo installed on their machine, etc.)…
Mike,
I understand your frustration with this event but I believe it is time to put this behind and forget about it. It’s easier said than done, I know. If I were in your shoes I’d probably do the same right now.
Le Web sucked. We got it. Let’s go back to the daily posts about Facebook and yahoo. Oh wait. No! Let’s go back to something we really care about (anything but facebook and Le web).
Still respecting you more than ever. That’s the power of blogging! These articles would never be posted on a newspaper and I think that’s why we love blogs (this love techcrunch). We get to have the real insight from people like you. No bs.
Let’s get going, Mike
Sebastien
Did you even read the post? This was not trashing Le Web at all, it was just about the internet provider and what a terrible job they did. It does sound absolutely disgraceful. I’m a very anti-lawsuit type of guy, but they deserve to be sued into the ground for such a shitty job.
i was offline mosf of the time for 2 days but i must say Swisscom did a pretty bad job and i am with you on that one. One idea i suggested loic was to pay less on Wifi and pay for 2 day 3G USB dongles for press and startups to giveaway. i have never been so far to a conference with Good wifi connectity. i even wonder if this is possible
Another idea would be to pay part a significant part of the service after the event which gives more leverage to negotiate with bad providers like Swisscom
Completely agree, Ouriel. Even Silicon Valley conferences can’t get the essentials taken care of. WiFi should be one of those things that people shouldn’t worry about.
Companies like AT&T and Sprint should have given 3G cards out to use, like you mentioned. So many possibilities… yet no one has achieved it.
It’s not that simple, see http://www.tech...comment-2566691
MS PDC 08 has up to 2,890 concurrent users and I saw only 1 complaint.
It was powered by Xirrus hardware but not sure who was providing the connection.
In any case, it sounds like the Swisscom issue was more likely WiFi hardware issues than actually internet connectivity issues.
http://tinyurl.com/mspdc08wifi
I simply can’t understand just how this happened.
With a 100,000 Euro budget, why not simply pay for
- 50 high speed 100mb/s symetric fiber lines
- 2-3 skilled network engineers for 4 days
And partner up with Cisco or the likes for the hardware part (switches, cables, Airport bases and so on)?
Tons of events with thousands of gamers (for instance) accessing the internet plus all press coverage streaming the event LIVE to their websites get hosted every year in Paris for FAR LESS than 100,000 Euros.
This should have been a “nobrainer” situation.
Ouriel, I went to Supernova conference, June 2007, San Francisco, and the wifi was perfect, for hundreds of attendees.
I was not alttending LeWeb this year but I was last year, and the wifi connectivity was good enough. As were also the food, and the room temperature
Shut up you morons who like to attack Mike for his comments at the conference. Everyone loves the idea of free speach but no one likes it in practice.
Are we that insecure as a people that we can’t handle honesty? Who knows if Mike is right….you don’t have to agree…prove him wrong, take a 2 hour lunch hour and make millions…and then say I told you so…don’t cry about it…babies.
Too bad there isn’t a UFC for wining as tech nerds…cause I would beat you ass down you annoy ass mofo’s…anytime…
This is a valid post. It is costs a lot of money for businesses to go to these conferences and a lot of them have to run their businesses on the go. It is a joke you can’t get good net access during these shows during this day and age. It is a real problem that should be solvable.
this is clearly a veiled attack
not a valid post
i am worried mike is starting to get too big for his britches
@Gebadia
Real name not!
Totally a typical American response….if I don;t agree with you…I will beat your ass down. Good one redneck.
Yeah….and if only the world decided things with a UFC match. Get your head out of your tiny little puckered up American ass and understand how the WORLD works.
You have no idea at all……..Hulk Hogan ain’t what he seems to be jerk-off. Or Mr. T. for that matter…..probably both these guys are your role models……dumb ass yankee fuck.
No didn’t…I am crazy, socialist Canadian. I just don’t put up with people bashing my Mike… I like his honesty… I know it is hard to hear when someone says something bad about you….I know that…but how are you going to get better unless you know what you suck at?
And anytime buddy…but who would we get to run the live feed…you, me in a ring…we should get our stats out there.
I am 6′4 230, use to play football, basketball and rugby…I like pain, makes you feel alive..
does anyone have an octagon…nerdsmack we could call it…I am game…lol…
> Totally a typical American response….if I don;t agree with you…I will beat your ass down. Good one redneck.
Funny. He gets slammed for lumping all Europeans into a “lazy” bucket, and then people retort with this? Kettle, meet pot.
John Berr,
Speaking of typical… listen to your insecure, non-American response. It rings the echoes of your countrymen before you… sassy, uninformed, and rude.
Fact: America has probably saved your country’s ass with our fighting spirit (depending on where you are from, we might have saved you twice!) … but it happened before you were born so your country has forgotten all about it and trained you think Americans are the devil… oh well, it was weak, gutless posers like you (and your ancestors) that required American might to mobilize and come save your wimpy little asses… so talk your shit and foolishly bring up Hulk Hogan and Mr. T for some stupid reason… you are probably lucky I do not know your nationality or else this reply would be a shit-ton more personal. (I’m hoping you are not the same John Berr who was schooled at The University of North Carolina, Greensboro… it would render your statement hypocritical…)
P.S. “Redneck” is south, “Yankee” is north… so get it straight next time you bumblefuck.
P.P.S. B.A. Baracus pwns joo!!
Also, I am gay. Any problem with that? screw you all!!!
I have been impersonated…lol.. ohhh you called me gay…oh no…I …well..that would be a compliment..it would mean I might have style..have you not seen me vids..
http://www.yout...h?v=-VnX6DGRX9s
I once took a girl I like to a tranny bar in New Orleans…got a kiss at the end of the night…
@Gebadia:
How about you go back to your blog and continue begging for people to chip in to your “cause” on the right hand side: “Help me see the girl I am falling in love with…” …loser.
Gebadia is not a american nor does he represent the US in any way shape or form.
ImmigrationLocator.com – separating humans
spamlocator.com when did I ever say I represented America…in fact my whole point was that these shows cost a lot of money to attend and the people who do so often have businesses they have to run. It seems odd that a company doesn’t stand up and say we guarantee 5 bar net access for any conference no matter the size or your money back.
My second point was why are people so afraid of blunt honesty.
Yes I had some fun with things but I am crazy…and you know what I like being crazy…I may be a fool in love with a girl who barely knows he exists but who gives a crap…that is who I am…and I clearly state in meblog that Gebadia is my online identity…when I get bored I make friends with myself….
We shouldn’t forget about sponsors too. If your product relied upon internet connectivity to be demo’d you are toast if the internet goes out.
-Angus Logan
http://blogs.ms...om/angus_logan/
How to shut up a baby!!
http://www.yout...h?v=G-s-Bc0DpWo
Why don’t you just whip it out.
You are an irrelevant Yankee, blowhard….your time is done.
Advertisers are saying it, and this little tiff with leweb….just proves it……wate of time…..done.
What a bitch..”John Berr” do you think Michael Harrington gives a shit about your comments? You dumb bitch, you are still on his website (bitching) and giving him traffic. Go back to your 700 Euro job at McDo.
Hey – How was Le Web? Have not heard much about it since you got back…
You had a bad experience. You got called out. Your not happy. The internet sucked.
That about sum it up? If you were a noob – you’d prolly moderate yourself
But hey it’ s your site – guess you can do what you want 
Universities provide internet connection for thousands of people every day.
Should’ve given 200,000 Euros to a reputable college and rented one of their big lecture halls for this event.
Shouda, coulda.
not in france, where universities are free.
I love French people, I really do.
Nevertheless, here are some French jokes (lighten up, guys):
Q: How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?
A: Nobody knows, it’s never been tried.
Q. Why don’t they have fireworks at Euro Disney?
A. Because every time they shoot them off, the French try to surrender.
Q. Why did the French plant trees along the Champs Elysees?
A. So the Germans could march in the shade.
Wow, it’s a blog, let the man rant and rave all he wants. Don’t expect the same service from a garage sale(ebay) as you find at walmart, you can choose which to shop at.
Four Interwebz Per Event? Not So Much. {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/Vsz7HCPhW4_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Four Interwebz Per Event? Not So Much. ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/6AOudXV6Is”}}}
Whoever covered the Web 2.0 Expo in SF last Spring did a fantastic job. WIFI was pervasive and easy to connect with, although it did saturate during a keynote or two and I couldn’t get a handshake going. Overall though, great set-up.
I believe the Moscone West conference center, the location for the Web 2 Expo, has high-end connectivity built into the facilities due to the large amount of tech conferences that take place there (Oracle World is probably the highlight and probably worth $10m’s, if not more, in terms of budget).
You are right; there is exceptional static connectivity there. Every few meters (on the top floors at least, the exhibits took my attention away from connection logistics on the lower floor) there is a patch box with RJ45, RJ11, and power. What they do not naturally have, however, is WIFI. So whoever got the job of providing connectivity filled the floors with clustered 802.11 antennas (4-6 at a time, mounted on 1 or 2 tripods), and that worked out very very well. I did take a pic of that antenna’s make and model number; if there is interest and I can fish it out I’ll post back with it.
He’s still a loud-mouthed, blowhard.
Go Arrington……
Whatever……TC has another year left…..you are irrelevant and done….bye big mouth!
John
I’ll bet you a hundred thousand dollars you’re dead fucking wrong.
I am not sure that 3G connectivity will have solved the problem- having hundreds of people trying to access 3G at the same time inside a single cell would have probably saturated the cell also. As was said- this is a real problem, and an expensive one to fix.
Exact! People should understand that data transfer on cell is an other topic…
There were some stable internet signal both days, *only* near the start-up competition room and the speaker lounge. Otherwise wifi signal was unstable everywhere else. The start-up competition even had no internet the whole day.
And ouch, 100k Euros for *that* kind of internet connection. What a waste of money. Loic might have agreed to use Swisscom because of some trusted contacts got from a 2 hour lunch. Mike did a good thing b#tching about it for the sake of professional conference in EU, though.
This is why you have a punitive SLA agreement in place for this. You get one when you buy managed hosting so why wouldn’t you get one when you buy managed internet.
Hm. Le Web Pas! I feel for the sponsors and start ups. Actually, I don’t. They shouldn’t have signed up for something as lamely named as le web. le web?
can we forget about this le ble web, por favor. whats on the plate for this week?
Big Naive question, why don’t jurnos carry their own aircard to these kind of events. Wifi is never reliable anywhere by my office and home, especially not at conferences! Aircard is the only way to go.
Kudos to Mike for calling them out. Such a disgrace as the Le Web internet failure should be called out and especially when there’s $100,000 on the line from the conference. Large conferences usually fail at internet implementation though. Great article but handing out 500-1000 3G cards wouldn’t solve it. Need a group VPN or something similar.
“Arrington Tries To Deflect Attention Away From Le Web Previous Posts”
boring
There was virtually no WiFi connectivity the first day, it took me about 4 hours to get one post up from the event, and that was from the speaker lounge of which I see people claiming there was good connectivity. There wasn’t, not even the 8 ethernet cables that were installed.
Second day was better, but only in a few areas. I sat in a sponsor booth in a separate room from the conference and had reasonable wireless connectivity for most of the day, although at times quite slow.
What I think is the worst about the whole story is not us (press / bloggers) or even attendees, but the startup competition that could have gone completely different had there been internet for all presenting companies.
See, this mess is the result of taking two hours for breakfast, two hour for lunch, two hours fo supper, etc. –and take naps in between… Internet connections? Screw the Americans! Merde!
Swisscom has had a state-sponsored telecom monopoly in Switzerland until just a few years ago.
So there is no wonder they still are not able to get their finger out of their @$$…
They want to be positioned as the “quality” service, but I guess you guys just witnessed their “quality”.
Just go for the competition.
I saw Mike trying to post and file from Leweb the second day from one of the networking rooms with the comment “the wifi might work here” – surely not the place he wished to be.
There may have been 100% internet connectivity once it got passed the router – and I do believe them that, but that is no use if you cannot get to or past the router long enough to finish what you do.
I only had my mobile phone with me and even with that only maybe 3 every ten tries the small mobile twitter webpage worked – kilobytes in requests to fullfill.
Tech conferences are nothing new and the reason ‘hacker’ conferences work with wifi is simple that they make everybody work so much more (no automatic IP addresses but everybody gets one on site, gazillion of routers and near to nobody with faulty software and setup to endanger the connection).
As I said two years ago, this is for every mobile phone provider the challenge to understand it is not just about covering an event with some wifi. But one with powerful voices through their reach to influence others.
Wifi is only a small part of a conference, though it makes a lot of noise. Anyway, during the second day it worked quite well.
people who are ripping on mike on this post should move their comments to the other bitchslap posts with Loic. this one is solely about Internet connectivity at LeWeb & I agree it sucked ass. I feel sorry for Loic getting screwed by Swiss Telecom but mike is correct that it was mostly unusable both days, particularly day 1. I was in the speaker lounge, and it didn’t work the first day at all (even with Ethernet cables provided) and the second day was almost as bad. no wireless in the startup room was a travesty, as the startups there basically had to pitch from powerpoint instead.
overall I’d say it was possibly the worst ever Internet experience I’ve had at a conference. Loic should get his money back.
invite arrington back next year. but don’t invite Swiss telecom back.
We had similar problems at the first F8 with internet connectivity (which sucked because some of us were fixing bugs up until the last minute). These issues are harder to solve than they would first appear – they are typically similar to scalability issues in large websites where you have allocated enough capacity but a single unexpected bottleneck destroys everything (e.g. the access points allocate a fixed small portion of memory for every user who tries to connect but it turns out that the buffer available for this is too small for the number of users, or maybe some other pathological routing condition that only manifests under extremely high load). This is not an excuse, but it does mean that you need to have really sharp people on-site to do on-the-spot debugging of whatever problems arise because you usually can’t predict them.
Anyway, by the time we had the second F8, we managed to solve the problem with a combination of more competent wifi management and a separate system of ethernet hardpoints as full-contingency backups (hidden under every couch were ethernet cables already connected to ports), backed by our IT guys who were expecting the worst. It was jointly managed by our Director of IT and whatever company we hired. I don’t know how the attendance of F8 compares to TC50 but if they are the same order of magnitude, you might try consulting with FB’s Director of IT on what we did.
Mike, I fully agree with you. Connectivity at Tech conferences is an essential service. So far most conferences have failed to provide it.
This is especially un-acceptable if one considers the amounts of money changing hands ( organisers to providers & attendees to organisers).
It is really not *that* hard to provide sufficient connectivity with redundancy.
I have blogged about it before (and probably will again): http://url.ie/zvf
At Eventoblog.com, a conference of the same size in Seville, Spain last novembre, spanish telco Jazztel provided a great wifi contectivity for three days.
I am one of the organizers and, in our third edition, we manage to get a good service by joining the telco to the sponsors panel. If their brand is at stake, their preformance is better. We at eventoblog.com are very happy with their work. http://www.even...zztel-se-mueve/
Why did Loïc contract with Swisscom ? Swisscom is a Swiss company. LeWeb happened is Paris. I’m pretty nothing belong to Swisscom in Paris. So they sub-contract part of their job. Bad decision.
This is not the first time it happened in big conference. Lack of good and reliable connection. Why wouldn’t you suggest some solutions instead of criticise them over and over.
Isn’t there anybody here how knows how Apple does for their press conferences when hundreds of reporters are attending.
I think that giving multiple accesses for every type of attendees is already a good point.
These kind of conferences will happen again. Let’s try to suggest solution.
This is a fully grown up BABY post.
You can work 2 years building credability and lose it in 2 seconds.
This is pathetic.
Mike,
I am curious what are the legal liabilitiy differences between USA telecoms and European Telecoms
concerning these issues..
Might be another part of why SV and World start ups are different via the obstacles involved…
I don’t get it…. really I don’t. For that kind of money they could have dropped an OC12 in there! Demux, and place a bunch of Wireless hubs all over the place. Okay it’s a bit more complicated than that…..
And why not provide Internet access for free through some sort of advertising deal?
IMHO, both parties got screwed.
Swisscom seems to still be living in the old “regulated” world of Telecom.
And the organizers of Le Web did a terrible job of ensuring they had good Internet access. A real dis-service to the people who paid good coin to attend “the event”.
I remember something about TC50 also not having any internet connectivity…
how can this happen in this day and age!! internet is essential for any press event…
…the same way that there are parts of Silicon Valley that still have no high speed internet access available to them!
this is incredible …
i think well before try to decide to partecipate to the next edition of Leweb …
Swisscom Eurospot has been ripping people off in hotel rooms across Europe with crappy and severely overpriced internet access for 15 years. Did you expect them to be different this time?
They should be totally put out of business in Europe with 3G networks.
Europeans and Canadians are much too sleezy to allow competition though. Rogers and Swisscom will continue to be monopolies.
I should have used the word greasy instead of sleazy, the govt of Canada and the European governments are not too sleazy, they are too greasy.
There, that’s better.
The level of rash judgements and misunderstanding in these comments makes me want to get out of techcrunch ASAP.
Why does everyone think they know best?
Could it be that this post is just trying to show that Loic wasn’t to blame for all the issues troubling LeWeb?
“agreed not to trash them publicly, so I won’t name the service.”
That’s not the Michael Arrington I know and love.
@Frederick Sidler: YES, how would one test capabilities of any venue? If one needs to plan an event like this on a smaller scale are we at the mercy of the vendor?
What is the test?
Are universities missing a great opportunity by not trying to capture these events? – and charging huge fees? or is there not enough luxury to attract attendance?
Yeah. Let’s bash Swisscom for all the problems at LeWeb 08. That’s easy as they’re not twittering the whole weekend long.
Forget about insufficient food, cold halls, an inflation of arrogant Americans on stage.
Note: We know very little about the details of the deal between Swisscom and LeWeb.
I have no idea how the relationship with the internet provider and the venue works in Paris so it would be great to have Loic chime in on this. For those that don’t know here is a brief run down on how it works in the states.
If you are hosting a conference, company event or tradeshow at any mid level to large venue in the US, the venue (hotel, convention center, etc) has an exclusive contract with an internet provider.
You as a show organizer have to contract with that exclusive internet provider. Their prices are five to fifty times higher than the open market and their service is slow and unreliable. Their technicians are virtually worthless.
Their contracts limit their liability when their equipment or employees fail to deliver the service you have contracted for.
Long story short, The show organizer, attendees and sponsors are are at their mercy.
Again I am not aware of how this works in the EU, or Paris in particular but these agreements are typical for all other services provided at convention centers both in the US and the EU.
For example food service, general contractors (the people who charge so much to move your booth in and out), cleaning services, etc.
I know of one example in Milan where the exclusive internet provider is Vodaphone.
My one question to you Loic is were you forced to use Swisscomm via the venue or do they have some other sort of monopoly in the area?
Changing the way this is done in the US is one of my goals in life. I fight it every day. In fact while I was missing Le Web, I was having dinner with a VP from the Las Vegas Convention Center telling him this had to change and his venue should lead the industry in making that change.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Mike at a few venues over the years, and I must say I can’t blame anyone who doesn’t want him at their event. The most talented people in the industry generally don’t wave it in your face. So he publishes a blog with inflated readership statistics, just like trade rags did ten years ago. Bore.
I also don’t get the whining about Internet at Le Web. The whole point of a conference is to meet other people at the conference, not to jack off in public by twittering about the important people you’re sitting next to. I remember back in the day when people networked at these places called bars. No internet required, and nobody dared use the phone or get robbed blind.
If you’re going to pick on the Europeans, bitch about their anally retentive practice of metering shot pours to the milliliter.
Just want to point out, as my twitter stream proves, that I was able to connect for about 60% of the conference. This is only because my laptop was perhaps one of the first 10 connected on day one – day two took a bit longer since I came in shortly after the first session, but eventually fought through ups and downs to get connected.
Regardless, network access points weren’t working the morning of Day One at all until just a few moments before the conference started. Then they went up and down throughout the conference, one time booting me offline for a few hours where I missed covering a lot of compelling content.
I have seen situations where conferences have even paid over $100usd per connection and it doesnt work – I agree, I dont understand why someone hasn’t solved for this and made a real business out of it yet….
That said, Michael is right about the separate zones required for a conference like this – most especially for the stage – but talking about the lack of internet connectivity that hurt several presentations is not enough, we also must talk about the amount of operator error in simply displaying the presentations that were on screen – the crew did a horrible job at wiring the presentation laptop to the main screen – this is entirely unforgivable and was much more of an affront to all presenters and attendees then anything anyone else has said so far
This is an informative article because it tells other conference organizers which company not to use to supply connectivity. The Guardian article, in contrast, just trashes the conference itself.
We need to know about Swisscom.
The lack of internet connection sounds like it was absurd, but the follow up lies from the organizers is what’s really the most interesting part here.
Whoever supplies the internet (wired and wireless) for the Apple events eg WWDC in SF last year, seems to do a great job.